Ready before it was ready
The Scotsman Hotel brought us in when it was right in the middle of renovations. Opening day was still a ways off, but the hotel needed to build curiosity online through the holiday season and the lead-up to launch.
That meant making a building site look like a five-star stay, which took a lot of prep. Before the December shoot, our list ran from the obvious to the oddly specific: pull the construction paper off the windows and hang drapes so nobody can see in, string lights on the trees and down the sidewalk, get a horse and buggy in place, and ask the shops on Queen Street to leave their lights on after closing. We also brought our own snow, since December in Niagara doesn’t promise any, plus a three-person crew to run the machines. Then, at the last minute, the dinner scene moved to a private home.
Nine months later, with the interior done, we had two days to shoot footage for nine videos, including the reveal the winter film had been waiting for. We shot at 48 frames per second so everything moved a little slower, the way a weekend away should feel. We swapped our shoot days to catch golden hour in the vineyards at Peller Estates, did a wetdown outside the hotel so the pavement would catch the light, and took two cameras through every suite: one on a slider for the wides, one on a gimbal for the details. Somewhere in there, a full Scottish breakfast got plated in the kitchen and a pianist played in the foyer.
By the time The Scotsman opened its doors in February 2024, its videos were already finished.
None of this is really a hotel problem. Products launch before they’re done, offices get renovated mid-campaign, and the shoot date rarely lines up with the perfect day. The job is planning around all of it so the finished film never shows the seams. The vlog below shows them anyway.
Behind the scenes
Two shoots, nine months apart, and everything it took to make an unfinished hotel look ready for its first guests.
